Kew Gardens

To celebrate sending Issue #2 of Love Japan magazine to print, Emily and I decided to visit the famous Kew Gardens in west London yesterday. Of course we were mostly there to see the Japanese garden and its ten-storey pagoda but the whole gardens were amazing.

There was just so much to see and so much that appealed to me, as well as the Japanese bits: trees, a treetop trail, wood carvings, giant greenhouses, ponds, bridges, bamboo – it was literally the perfect day out for me! Aside from the fact that the weather was really quite dull, we did have a lovely day and I would highly recommend the gardens. I can’t wait to go back again on a sunny day!

The pagoda is about to go through some big regeneration work but it still looks impressive.

Certainly the most authentic Japanese gardens that I’ve seen outside of Japan.

Typically Japanese stone lantern.

And another with a little water feature.

A gatehouse-style structure inspired by a real part of a temple in Kyoto.

Great architectural details.

Raked gravel – an essential in any Japanese garden.

At the top of a giant greenhouse – very warm.

More typical garden spaces.

In the lily pad house.

Looking up at the treetop trail. Scared? Not one bit!

I love being up in the trees.

Minka house – sort of Japanese (a bit like a gasshō house).

Emily taking lots of photographs (on a real camera unlike me with my iPhone).

I love wood carvings.

I did some climbing. My balance is pretty good but I didn’t attempt every single log.

Learning which tree/wood is which.

Emily and I always seem to find peacocks.

The centre of a giant redwood…

…and this would be the width of it.

HUGE!

And just a final reminder of what the pagoda looks like.

Hyper Japan 2015

On Saturday I attended my first Hyper Japan Festival in London, at the O2 (or the Millennium Dome, for those that remember it before!).

HYPER JAPAN is your one-stop destination for all things Japanese. Whether you want to try authentic Japanese food or street food, learn about traditional or modern arts, or share your love of anime and videogames, HYPER JAPAN has something for everyone!

I didn’t really know what to expect, only that it would be awesome to be around so many other Japanophiles like myself. I had a good day all-in-all, but there was a lot of queuing and generally a lot more people than there were stalls – particularly food stalls – and general things to see and do!

This was where we got to in the queue after about 10 minutes.

So many Japanese KitKats and other sweeties.

One of the first stops was Tofu Cute.

I really want one of these plushie Mt Fuji.

I loved the bonsai, of course.

Matcha bubble tea – far nicer than the last one of these I had.

Watching the martial arts performances was fun.

So the Japanese like cats, eh?

Just Link from LOZ playing video games.

Retro and almost as old as me.

A little bonsai in the ‘garden’.

The most amazing Princess Mononoke (Studio Ghibli) forest spirit cosplay.

So many amazing looking cupcakes.

Of course I bought a matcha one.

And a popping edamame pod keyring.